When I was growing up in Dublin, about 20 years ago, Dublin High School’s football team lost a playoff game at Cairo on a missed field goal.
Dublin had a chance to tie the game late and attempted a long field goal that, by all video accounts, went through the uprights.
The officials saw it differently and waved the kick no good, giving Cairo a 24-21 win.
That prompted Dublin’s assistant band director, who would later be my drum line instructor in high school, to refer to Cairo as “the land of magical goalposts.”
That’s a more than apt description of Washington, D.C. and perhaps America at large — especially after the latest case of theatrics coming from the Trump administration and the president’s firing of FBI Director James Comey.
It was classic Trump, erratic and off the cuff.
In late October, when Comey announced he was reopening the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of her private email server while she was secretary of State, Trump offered praise for Comey, saying that decision “took guts.” He had previously blasted Comey last July when the director said Clinton had been reckless with her actions, but that he would not pursue criminal charges against her.
Days after the investigation reopened, Comey announced the FBI had not changed its conclusions on the matter, effectively irking both campaigns and both major political parties. Trump, of course, won two days later.
As Trump took office, he seemed to be very cordial with Comey, but that apparently was not enough to save the director’s job.
The president shook Washington again last week with the director’s firing — conveniently in the middle of the FBI’s investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian officials to influence the election.
Initially, Trump said the firing was based on Comey’s handling of the Clinton investigation. His letter to Comey informed the now former director that he was “not able to effectively lead the bureau,” based on the findings of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who said Comey had mishandled the Clinton investigation.
Later in the week, Trump pivoted, admitting the firing was a result of “this Russia thing.”
On the heels of that came a report by the New York Times that Trump, during a private dinner days after his inauguration in late January, had asked for Comey’s loyalty, according to associates of Comey who told them he declined.
Several Republican leaders have expressed feelings of discomfort and being “troubled” by the firing. There have been calls by both parties for an independent congressional investigation.
Many Republicans, though, continue to ignore the reality of Trump’s presidency and relate this back to Clinton and Democrats.
In a recent conversation with a Trump supporter and devout Republican, he told me it was laughable that Democrats have reacted like they have to Comey’s firing when party leaders like Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said they had lost confidence in Comey and called for his firing.
That’s true; they did. That argument has been repeated by conservative pundits and talk radio hosts everywhere.
But is it even relevant?
I don’t know if a President Clinton would have fired Comey — most likely not, based on the Clintons’ political shrewdness — but I do know what the reaction from the right would have been and anyone who’s ever paid attention to politics does, too.
What the Trump supporter doesn’t acknowledge, though, is this has very little to nothing to do with Democrats’ feelings toward Comey and more to do with Trump.
You can say this is all a case of extremely poor timing on Trump’s part, but the admission that this action was about Russia comes off to me as a dare of sorts. I’m the president and I’ll do what I want. Eat your heart out, Richard Nixon.
Maybe this isn’t a case of obstruction of justice, but if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck… you know the rest.
Adding more fuel to the fire is a report by the Washington Post late Monday night that Trump, a day after firing Comey, shared highly classified information with Russian officials during a meeting at the White House. By the way, that meeting was closed to the American press, but open to the Russian press.
According to Post sources — current and former U.S. officials — Trump shared details of an Islamic State threat “related to the use of laptop computers on aircraft” with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyah. And the president’s actions, according to the sources, have jeopardized a critical source of intelligence on ISIS so sensitive “that details have been withheld from allies and tightly restricted even within the U.S. government,” the Post reported.
White House officials seemed to acknowledge Trump’s sharing of sensitive information, instead saying in statements that he had not discussed specific sources and intelligence-gathering methods. As president, Trump can share that information so the legality of it is really is not the main issue here. It’s his attitude in processing and carelessness in sharing of sensitive information, along with his general interactions with foreign leaders.
The aforementioned Trump supporter I had the discussion with and many others have said similar things. They’re at times bothered by the president’s “arrogance,” but believe he will prove to be an effective president.
“They tried to bury Ronald Reagan, too,” the supporter told me.
To me, arrogance is far down the list of worries.
I’m not in a position to be interacting with any president on a daily basis, so it’s not of great concern to me whether they are a jerk.
And, as a political independent, it’s certainly not about whether our president is a Republican or Democrat.
What we can’t afford is incompetence and recklessness, especially in foreign relations.
If Hillary Clinton were president under the current circumstances, I think they’d see it the same way.
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Scott Thompson is editor of the Barrow News-Journal. He can be reached at sthompson@barrownewsjournal.com.

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